Who Were the Sea Peoples?

One theme running through Brad Delong's posts is that someone like myself or Thomas Nagel, who believes that our reason can (at least sometimes) lead us to objective truth, think we are some sort of omniscient demi-gods, while people like DeLong, who realizes we are just "jumped-up monkeys" making guesses, are epistemically modest. This is nonsense. In fact, I would suggest, it is the idea that the "truth is out there," and we should strive to reach it, that leads to true epistemic modesty, since we are liable to realize just how little of that truth we have actually managed to perceive. After all, it was Socrates, the nemesis of the first sophists (and the argument of DeLong, Kuehn, etc. is just sophistry in modern garb, although, holding philosophy in contempt, they know too little of it to realize this) who decided he might just be the wisest of men because he realized how little he knew. Meanwhile, the idea that it is all just guesses paves the way to arr...

Previous post , should you want the background here. First, let us look carefully at Nagel's example, and see what he is using it to demonstrate (emphasis mine): "The distinctive thing about reason is that it connects us with the truth directly.... [S]uppose I observe a contradiction among my beliefs and “see” that I must give up at least one of them. (I am driving south in the early morning, and the sun rises on my right.) In that case, I see that the contradictory beliefs cannot all be true , and I see it simply because it is the case. I grasp it directly.... [W]hen we reason, we are like a mechanism that can see that the algorithm it follows is truth-preserving.... Something has... gotten our minds into immediate conact with the rational order of the world.... Rational creatures can... make up their own minds.... It does seem to be something that cannot be given a purely physical analysis and therefore... cannot be given a purely physical explanation. If ...

You see, because he once reasoned wrongly about a situation he found himself in, that proves that Thomas Nagel is dumb! When you find yourself calling one of the greatest philosophers of the last half century dumb, something has gone wrong. And in this case, the problem is that Nagel has trampled upon DeLong's religious faith, which is materialism. This is naturally a shaky faith, since there is not a single shred of evidence in favor of its truth. So when a prominent, non-religious philosopher like Nagel notes that besides lacking any evidence in its favor it seems very implausible, there is nothing for it but to declare him stupid, so he can be safely ignored and the faith can be protected. 

Brad Delong links to me as a defender of Niall Ferguson, linking to a post that never mentions Niall Ferguson at all. That has sent me a lot of hits. That was very sweet of you, Brad, as I take it as kind of a bouquet sent to me to make up for our recent spat. OK, I'll put you back on my sidebar, but: try to be fair in your attacks on your opponents, OK? (And I will try to be fair in my attacks on mine, since I suffer from the same problem you do. We can be kind of AA pals, OK?)